September 10, 1931
It was 1931. The Castellammarese War was over and the body of Joe “The Boss” Masseria was cooling in a morgue somewhere. Salvatore Maranzano took up his position as the new Boss—the capo di tutti capi of New York City.
Lucky Luciano had risked much to join Maranzano—he’d betrayed his old boss and put his backing behind an unknown. His hope was that Maranzano’s victory would not only bring an end to a conflict that had lasted too long, but that Maranzano, unlike Masseria before him, would modernize the Mafia and its businesses.
At the time the mobs were overrun with what were known as “Moustache Petes”—old-world mafiosi who clung to dated and sometimes meaningless traditions. Hard-line Petes wouldn’t do business with non-Italians. Some wouldn’t even associate with non-Sicilians, and even then preferred only those from their own villages.
The Young Turks, as Luciano’s generation was called, readily broke bread with other gangs, and incorporated different ethnic groups into their mobs. Nationality didn’t enter into it. The Broadway Mob, to which Luciano belonged, included such names as Frank Costello and Joe Adonis to be sure, but also Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky—heavy-hitters all of them. Old-fashioned notions only hindered the gangs’ ability to make money.
Luciano, then, expected a lot from Maranzano. He had also been led to believe that the days of the overriding single Mafia boss had died with Masseria. But Maranzano had his own agenda, of course, and envisioned himself as the ruler of a new Roman Empire—a new Caesar. In fact the press called Sal “Little Caesar”, like Edward G. Robinson in that 1931 flick of the same name.
Maranzano inaugurated his new world order at a banquet held in late April of ’31. During the celebration he rewarded his supporters, such as Luciano, dividing New York among them. But he also took the opportunity to assert his authority; like Masseria before him, Maranzano declared himself capo di tutti capi. This was not what Luciano had signed up for.
On September 10, 1931, Luciano sent over some hired guns to Maranzano’s offices. These were non-mafiosi, men that Maranzano did not recognize—such was the price of his closed-mindedness. Posing as Internal Revenue agents, the gunmen had no trouble entering and were ushered in to see the Boss. Once inside, the killers quietly closed the door behind them and put an end to Little Caesar.
Once Maranzano was out of the way, Luciano abolished the position of capo di tutti capi, an institution that had caused far too much in-fighting. He also created the Commission—the ruling body that refereed the goings-on of the Mafia families—and the National Crime Syndicate, the agency that oversaw all underworld matters for every mob in the country. For the first time ever, crime was truly organized, and that meant power.